IU to award Brand honorary degree

Myles Brand, IU president emeritus and current NCAA president, will receive an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree during the IU Honors Convocation on Sunday.

Brand served as IU’s 16th President from 1994 to 2002. Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, who worked under Brand as vice president, said Brand left his mark on the University with the nation’s first School of Informatics.

“I think he did a lot of things in his years as president,” he said. “But his most lasting impact was the creation of a new school.”

Louis said another of Brand’s major accomplishments was the creation of Strategic Directions. Faculties from all campuses were invited to submit proposals to the committee, who would then recommend which proposals should be funded.

“A couple of the proposals still continue on campuses because of their success,” Louis said. “That was another lasting legacy.”

Louis said honorary degrees are given to three or four people a year at Founders Day and Commencement ceremonies. The degrees are awarded to people with ties to the University who are well-known nationally as well as people who are known locally.

“It is a significant honor to get honorary degrees from any University,” Louis said.

Sunday’s ceremony is part of the Founders Day celebration to honor students in the honors colleges at all IU campuses, Louis said. Students who have earned a cumulative GPA of 3.8 or higher will be recognized at the event.

Louis said he worked very closely with Brand during his years as president, speaking with him almost every day. He said Brand told him once at a conference in
Washington he never learned to read phonetically. Brand learned words as full words.

“Myles always had trouble with multi-syllable words,” Louis said.

During a speech in which Brand was to say the word “improvisation,” Louis said he could not say the word and after a few tries continued with his speech. Later that week when Brand gave the same speech, he changed the word.

“He improvised the word improvisation,” Louis said.

Shortly before Christmas, Louis said he received an e-mail from Brand saying he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Since the diagnosis, Brand has been undergoing treatment for the disease.

“It’s a very challenging cancer,” Louis said.

Despite the current obstacles Brand is facing, he will attend the ceremony where IU
President Michael McRobbie will present him with the award.

IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said the reason McRobbie is presenting the degree to
Brand now is because Brand is held in very high esteem and there has been a desire to do something that would reflect both that esteem and his accomplishments at IU.

MacIntyre said McRobbie has known Brand since Brand hired him in 1997.

“They had a long and close relationship,” he said. “McRobbie is very well aware of the high regard people at IU have for Myles Brand and he felt it was a good time to do something to show IU’s appreciation for all that he has done.”